nancylebov | Remember _Shockwave Rider

Apparently, Delphi pools can work pretty well as long as the people in them are autonomous, decentralized, and cognitively diverse. There are good reasons to mistrust mobs and committees, but those reasons don't completely generalize to bunches of people who aren't making each other stupid. Link found at geekpress.com. And for rather more about cognitive diversity:

Taken from an autobiography excerpt by an autistic person, posted in this journal, which bears repeating because it can just as easily be applied to a whole range of other problems our culture handles very badly. "This is where I think most attempts to "help" autistic spectrum persons fail. They start from the assumption that the person does not fit in, and then seek to twist the person into some imitation of normalcy — usually at the expense of the autistic spectrum person's sense of self and self-esteem — rather than starting from the position that the person has a role, already does fit in as a critical edge piece of the human puzzle, and seeking to help them develop the tools they need to fill that role effectively. We don't need the skills it takes to be "normal"; we need the skills it takes to be different."

more about autism from various angles